How Important are Patient Reviews for Your Medical Practice?
by Arina Smith Services 23 May 2018
A recent poll has shown that 88% of people have read reviews to determine whether or not a local business is a good choice for them.
That means that almost 9 out of every 10 people read reviews before making a decision to visit a business. If you’re a medical professional, you might think that you don’t need to worry about reviews for your practice, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
There are major benefits to inviting your patients to write unbiased testimonials and reviews for your practice. In fact, you and your staff should start making a habit of asking patients to write their reviews on Yelp, Google, and other places your clients might be spending time.
If you’re not sure whether or not patient reviews are important to your medical practice, read on.
We’ve outlined a few reasons why they’re essential to growing and expanding as a healthcare provider.
They Help You Gain Visibility :
Online reviews are great for providing insight into your practice to customers searching for information. But, they’re also great for your relationship with Google. When Google sees that your practice is getting reviews, it translates to your practice being relevant and something that should be shown in local search results.
When there are reviews for your medical practice on many different review sights, you’ll be able to help your practice stand out from the rest of your competition.
You Can Share Them to Promote Your Practice :
Once you’ve gotten a few positive patient testimonials, you can to post them on your website. There’s no better way to earn the trust of your potential patients.
Also, did you know that patients are more likely to visit a doctor’s office after watching video testimonials? They’re even more likely to stay longer on a website that offers video reviews.
If you’re worried about protecting your online reputation, there are marketing services out there.
These services will allow you to review the reviews before sending them to the review sites. This allows you to screen the negative ones before they’re posted.
They Increase Patient Trust :
Think about your own experience in searching for a medical professional. When you want to find a doctor for your own needs, you would likely attempt to learn more about them through their colleagues first. You trust them, and this is a decision that should be based on trust.
That’s what patient reviews give to your customers.
Your prospective patients are way more likely to visit your practice after reading reviews and testimonials. However, patients are also a lot more likely to promote your business through word of mouth with their friends and family as well.
The more your healthcare practice can generate positive reviews, the more trust they’ll have in you. And when they trust you, they’ll feel confident in telling their friends and family about you as well.
They Increase Brand Awareness :
You might not think that your medical practice is your brand, but it absolutely is. The more you appear online, the more your brand grows. When your future patients recognize your name, it will immediately link back in their minds to your reputation, too.
This translates into more patients immediately. The more patient visits you get, the more recommendations you get. That gives you more positive word-of-mouth marketing, too.
As you can see, it will start a cycle that grows and improves your reputation among your future client base.
Patient Reviews Develop Your Reputation :
When you encourage unbiased reviews on sites like Yelp, Google, and RateMDs, you reach a wider audience than just word-of-mouth marketing. As wonderful (and free!) as word-of-mouth marketing is, it can really only get you so far. However, when you’re dealing with an online presence, it allows your reputation to grow.
When potential patients see that you have a track record of happy, healthy patients, they will want to come visit you over the other guys.
You Can Gain Patient Insight :
There’s also a world of benefit that can be taken from reading your patient reviews and testimonials. When you read more about how some patients have left your practice happy, you know what you should keep doing.
In the same sense, when you read a less than stellar review of your healthcare practice, you can see what you can do better. It hurts to see someone leave a negative review of your practice, but use it as a chance to grow.
Take that opportunity and show people how you are willing to always try to do better. If you can deal with negative reviews in a calm, polite, kind, and caring manner, you earn even more customers who trust you to do the right thing.
So, Just How Important Are Patient Reviews?
We hope we’ve demonstrated by now that patient reviews are absolutely essential to growing your practice. If you haven’t started encouraging your patients to leave reviews on popular review sites, don’t wait any longer. If you want to stand out from your competitors, this is the first step.
Patients come to you for their health, something that’s both personal and intimate. They want to be absolutely sure that they’re making the right decision before they step through the doors of your practice.
When you start cultivating reviews for your practice, you can start assuring them that you are the right doctor for them before they even make their first phone call to set up an appointment.
There is nothing easy about running a medical practice. If you’re looking for more information on how to run your business effectively, visit our blog today. We’re here to help you learn how to grow and expand your company!
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